Sam and the Dead

Balustrade 5

Sam was almost done with her second steak. The exodus had her squished against the table for a while, but there was plenty of room now, with the apprentices on the balcony, and her neighbour, Jinn the pyro, having disappeared for good. Maybe he got lost. Maybe he went home to work on his business ideas.

A swish of fabric. A familiar shape took over the vacant seat. The white robe looked much the same, and the chiselled chin was – she almost hated to admit it – sharper than any of the ones in the paintings.

'Looks cosy over here.' Jack the Second Progenitor grinned at her. 'What a delightful night, made even better by our fateful meeting. How's the steak?'

'Excellent,' said Sam.

'That thing looks part machine, don't you think?' He did not stop to hear what she thought. 'What kind of engineering went into its making, I wonder? Not that I care. I only admire its power. What compelled her to construct such a creature?'

'Mmm,' said Sam, waiting for him to answer his own question.

'A challenge Jack couldn't overcome by clicking his fingers,' and the pyro clicked his to demonstrate, in case that was too hard for Sam to follow. 'It is a rather good show she's putting on, isn't it? The way she riled him up?'

Sam shrugged.

'What's her relationship with Cowen, by the way? They seem very familiar.'

Sam shrugged again.

'Hmm. Well. In any case, the evening is turning out to be great fun. Last year it was speeches and toasts all through the night, and those fucking belly-dancers.'

The expletive caught Sam so off-guard she almost forgot to eat. 'The what?'

'Edwin. The man loves dancers in the nude.' The pyro spat with remarkable revulsion. 'This is why I like you. You are modest. You are properly dressed. The beauty of the face,' he gestured at his own cheeks, 'is the grail of the pious man, and I must say, you look even cuter without the plague mask. I knew I had a good eye. I am very impressed with myself.''

Truth be told, Sam much preferred his platitudes about ethics and politics than...whatever this was. 'Sure,' she said.

Another thunderous crack. The amblers had been edging closer, and the giant had responded with another swing of its whip. A mulch of body parts, indistinguishable from one another, coated a fresh pit in the floor.

The shockwave knocked the fork out of her hand. Her newly healed fingers didn't want her to eat, apparently. She stared sullenly at the half-left steak. If only the pyro wasn't watching, she could just pick it up with her hands.

'Chaos is the great equaliser, the bane of power, the filed teeth of the disenfranchised,' eulogized the pyro, 'and violence is its instrument.'

'Yes,' said Sam. Finley had said something like that earlier, she was sure.

'So? What say you?'

'About what?'

'Dating,' he said, as if that was obviously where the conversation was headed. 'I make three hundred thousand seeds a year. That's a lot of money I can't spend.'

'Maybe another time.'

A muscle twitched under his eye. 'I think you'll find that having someone of my standing in your life to be a great asset.'

'Sure,' said Sam.

The pyro waited to see if she had anything more to add, and sighed when nothing was forthcoming. 'You don't talk much, do you?'